I sing the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off til I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
Walt Whitman, 1900
This body work I've been doing for the last couple of years is truly amazing. It's part talk therapy, part movement work, and part teaching my body to feel its feelings and not intellectualize every single thing. Tough for a booky girl like me.
The result so far is a lot of old baggage shed, and that I have some energetic hot spots in my body core that twinge when I am angry, upset, frightened, etc. So then I have to stop and say, "What's that about?" The 12-steppers call it "sitting with the feelings," instead of running off to medicate them with your drug of choice...whether that be alcohol, narcotics, or even if it be food, TV, exercise. Whatever you use not to think, not to feel.
The last few days have been very talky for my body. I have a constant bad feeling. It has to do with an injustice to someone I care about very much, perpetrated by an organization I care about very much.
I bring it up because I saw part of an old movie on TV this morning that got me thinking. Powder was released in 1995 with the tagline, "Pure energy has a name." The basic theme of the movie is that we are all part of everything, and all connected to each other. No matter what you call that, or how you explain it, I believe in that. We are called to carry each others' pain and lift up each others' joy.
The question is, what else are we called to do? What can we do? What is possible to redress injustice, and how are we called to effect change? Many of my friends at the RevGals Preacher Party are considering justice today, in light of the Isaiah passage and some with reference to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday is celebrated January 21.
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Isaiah 42
Sure wish I could get to a beach today. I'll be waiting and listening with my favorite coastland in mind.
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